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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23385217">this is how you kill a god</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/williedustice/pseuds/williedustice'>williedustice</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mononoke-hime | Princess Mononoke, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV), 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Fusion, M/M, stabbing is a form of love, the legend of lan wangji, who but our gremlin wwx is both a feral child and a ruthless protector of those thrown away</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 15:14:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,207</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23385217</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/williedustice/pseuds/williedustice</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, a brave people driven east raised a prince true to their name. He traveled west to see with eyes unclouded, with a blade moon-bright and a song as pure as the cold springs of his homeland. </p>
<p>Once, the swift-footed, white-pelted gods of an ancient forest took in a human boy as their own, a boy quick to a smile and fierce to protect those he loved. He grew apart from them, taking an iron path far from the woods and the land that was, but still, he was the shield he’d been raised to be.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī/Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>146</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>this is how you kill a god</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>thank you (always) to the chat for encouraging this nonsense, which mashes an old love and a new one. next (and final) chapter next weekend.</p>
<p>thank you to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariaste">Ariaste</a> for the wise &amp; lightning beta &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>

<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>I.</p>
</div><p>When imperial banners flew in the Nightless City and gods and demons roamed in the west, the Lan had been driven east into their ancestral mountains, high in the clouds. There were still those who remembered who they were, and Lan heirs still ventured out with sword and guqin, but they had become a myth like anything else.</p>
<p>Lan Wangji had even gone himself, long ago, when the Wen warred with the gods of the western forests and the petty lords of Lanling. He had been very young, and glad to return home to his uncle and brother and clan. Sometimes though he dreamed of wolves running in the moonlight, the drift of a faraway flute, a boy with a bloody mouth and painted face and quick feet smiling at him through the trees, the pulse of an old, old forest beneath his feet, against his skin. He would wake from these dreams with the taste of sweet liquor on his tongue, too faint to chase. Lan Wangji did not drink, but this was sometimes the way of dreams.</p>
<p>The dying boar god, ancient and massive, rotted slickly into the shape of a man as flies buzzed overhead. Standing over him, the brand of his demonic energy like a living sun on Lan Wangji’s chest, he wondered if this boar had once run through the woods with a long-legged boy in a wolf pelt.</p>
<p>There was nothing of an immortal’s smile in the boar god’s voice when he laid his curse, bones already white in the sun. The demon mark pulsed on Lan Wangji’s chest beneath his robes and he knew what his uncle would say before even looking into his eyes. He would have to leave again, this time for good, or face a slow, unkind death, a sentence on those who loved him. The thought of leaving the high mountains, the loveliness of the cold springs, the mist that greeted him in the morning, his brother’s soft smile—it was not a merciful fate—but Lan Wangji had not been raised to look for mercy.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Then</em>
</p>
<p>Jin Zixun gave to Lan Wangji an oily, insincere smile as he flicked his eyes up. "It's a wolf moon tonight, traveler."</p>
<p>At that moment, the alarms began to sound, metal on metal like a drumbeat, and the sound of footsteps echoing. From where they stood, Lan Wangji could see torches flickering and moving as the Jin encampment stirred in panic. A howl, lonely and pure, broke through the din, raising the hair on his arms. An answering one sounded from the other side of the fences. He trained his eyes on the tree line, but the torchlight had thrown his sight. He was here though, this Lan Wangji knew. The wolf boy.</p>
<p>Jin Zixun had drawn his sword. "The Jiang animals are here for my uncle, and they'll get what they deserve."</p>
<p>"Gods," said Lan Wangji, unthinking.</p>
<p>Jin Zixun turned very slowly to look at him, his eyes moving from Lan Wangji's gathered hair to the simple material of his boots to the ribbon at his forehead, every inch of him a Lan from the eastern mountains, something as rare and faded from the world as the immortals of the deep woods that were. He sneered.</p>
<p>"Are you one of them or one of us?" The silence swelled between them, threatening.</p>
<p>Lan Wangji was saved from answering by shouts from below, gathering in volume and panic. He followed everyone's eye line to one of the rooftops. There. Lit by a bright moon, white pelt and inky hair moving in the night breeze. A slight, clever figure behind a silvery mask, jewelry rattling, blade in hand. They called him a prince of the wood and the mountains, of monsters and wild wild things, a boy who played his flute to calm the wolves to his bidding, who had turned his back on his own. Lan Wangji knew the face below the mask was soft, young still, painted and easy to a smile. It was impossible to see his eyes but his stare seemed to follow them on a string.</p>
<p>Jin Zixun swore and took off running. The wolf boy didn't even bother to look his way. He flipped his blade, something <em>mocking</em> about the way he did it and melted his way down the slope of the roof. He didn't move like a boy, body bent forward and legs swift beneath him, the pelt glowing in the moonlight. He was heading straight for where Jin Guangshan stood, surrounded by his gold-clad guards.</p>
<p>It wasn’t so much that he dodged the arrows winging his way that he flowed around them, not a wasted movement, fleet-footed as a god. He cut through Jin Guangshan’s men before they could react and came right up against the golden lord’s chest, blade on blade ringing harsh in Lan Wangji’s ears. They clashed and drew apart, circling, and a crowd formed around them, heads moving up and down to see, voices loud. Lan Wangji leapt down from the roof, paced until he hit the back of the crowd, listening for each sword strike.</p>
<p>The Jiang had once ranged over woods that stretched as far as the distant seas, and their smaller cousins roamed smaller forests still. The Jin said they’d taken in a child neither wolf nor human, a son who ran swift alongside his godly brother and sister. Lan Wangji had glimpsed him in the trees, clever human fingers working an arrow out from his mother’s ribs, his head only coming to her broad, furred shoulders. They’d turned, wolf and boy, mirrored expressions, painted red marks sharp as arrowheads themselves under the boy’s eyes, wolf blood at his mouth and the back of his wrist as he wiped and spat. The boy had smiled like light breaking across still water.</p>
<p>He was not smiling now, the mask shattered to pieces at his feet from a close blow that had thrown him back. He wasn’t trained, not in a human way. He moved for the soft places, Jin Guangshan’s throat, his belly, where his upper thighs sloped into the backs of his knees. And the guards were closing in again, darting in close when only they dared, but already the pelt was bloodied, a slice high on one arm sluggishly bleeding, a hitch in one leg that had not been there before.</p>
<p>Lan Wangji shoved the bystanders aside, surging forward into the circle, his sword arm out. The first guard he knocked out with a swift blow to the back of the head, the second with the hilt of his sword, another with a sweep, until he was between a panting, exhausted Jin Guangshan and the wolf boy, held at bay with his off arm, snarling.</p>
<p>Jin Guangshan had the soft skin of a rich man, the complicated clothes of someone who tithed the Nightless City. His sneer was like his nephew’s.</p>
<p>“Is this what the Lan come west to do? Take animal brides and rightful vengeance out of righteous hands?”</p>
<p>“I’m leaving,” said Lan Wangji, and he shoved the hilt of his sword into the wolf boy’s stomach, a harsh blow that stole the breath and knowing from him all at once. He slumped against Lan Wangji’s arm, smaller when he was still, a bearable weight when Lan Wangji heaved him up across his shoulders. The pelt was warm against the back of his neck. He tucked the wolf boy’s blade into his own belt.</p>
<p>Jin Guangshan took a shuddering step forward, eyes wary. “Traveler, we have no quarrel with the Lan, but this animal is ours.”</p>
<p>Lan Wangji turned away silently and made his way through the stunned crowd, whispers breaking behind him.</p>
<p>He was halfway to the edge of the encampment before the hot burst of pain split his side, his eyes finding the gold-tipped arrowhead emerging from under his ribs when he looked down at himself. The lords of Lanling serve the Nightless City for all the gold of the earth, his uncle had once said. How wasteful, Lan Wangji thought, and staggered.</p>
<p>He made it, step by agonizing step, to the line of darkness, and only closed his eyes when he heard the howls of the Jiang, pacing pale just beyond the torches, calling for their human brother.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Now</em>
</p>
<p>“You shouldn’t be here.”</p>
<p>His brother melted out of the darkness, a pale smear standing lonely between Lan Wangji and everything he had known and loved. He came close, his smile soft and only wavering an inch.</p>
<p>“Wangji, you are my brother.”</p>
<p>There was a touch at his wrist, and Lan Wangji’s eyes grew hot when he saw what Xichen had brought, the ribbon he’d cut from his own forehead when his uncle told him his fate. His brother quieted him with a look as he settled the cloud signet over the pulse at Lan Wangji’s wrist and carefully wrapped the cut ends around it, sealed neatly with a clean knot. The metal was cool over where his blood thundered, and he found he couldn’t speak.</p>
<p>He left before first light and didn’t stop until the mountains sloped gentle. The boar god had been in unimaginable pain, the demon in him like a living flame, and his path east was not hard to trace the other way, even across water and lowland and field. The demon mark ached the most at night, and sometimes Lan Wangji would press the cloud signet at his wrist against it, the skin-warmed metal a thin shield against the hate-born scar that pulsed beneath his skin.</p>
<p>He wasn’t the wide-eyed youth he’d been years ago, traveling the same western path, and the forests seemed stiller, smaller, less likely to throw a god in his face. They were no less lovely, more alien with each step west, still rich with grass that moved, sluggish, in the spring wind, clear rivers running out to sea, morning mist that would remind him of home. He passed small fishing villages, paddies echoing with girlish voices raised in song for planting season, larger towns here and there he only entered when he needed supplies.</p>
<p>He was almost as far west as he’d ever been before he heard the screams, distant, coming from where smoke curled into the air. When he looked, it was clear that there were those with swords and those who ran. He recognized the banners of Lanling and Baling, gaudy, cheap steel and gold-painted armor, but there were plenty of lordless swordsmen cutting people down too.</p>
<p>The first sword strike felt normal until his blade met flesh, and then it was a shockwave of fire from arm to chest to every inch of his skin, like his very gristle had been lit during a dry season. When he took his next breath, the man he’d slashed at was no longer astride his horse, was scattered on either side of the panicked animal. Others were screaming behind him, charging Lan Wangji as he raised his sword in defense. Each block set off another flare, centered over the mark on his chest, and each blow was impossibly powerful, like he was answering a candle with a hurricane. Worst of all, there was joy in it, even as he retreated, a fury that made him forget that he might not ever see his brother again, that he was a Lan alone in the world. Demon, they screamed, distracted from their victims. Yes, thought Lan Wangji.</p>
<p>He didn’t stop again until the rain forced him to take shelter in a village, freshly abandoned, still smoking, the same banners churned in the mud. In the headman’s empty house, he found holy company, a small, neat man with wide eyes and a delicate jaw. His smile was familiar, and he must have sensed the question in Lan Wangji’s face, because he clasped his hands in a bow, looking up from under his lashes.</p>
<p>“You saved me, with your sword.” His eyes flickered when he said it, enough that Lan Wangji knew he’d been there in that village, had seen the curse and what it could do. His smile never wavered though, and he simply continued talking as he laid out bowls—stroking Lan Wangji’s with careful fingers—and stirred the rice in the pot. “I’ve heard stories, you know, of a people who used to live in these lands, before they were driven east into the mountains. Some say they went all the way into the clouds with the immortals. They say they made pieces like this one, white jade you can hold to the light, that they played guqin like yours, songs to make a heart still.” He ladled porridge into the bowl and handed it across the broken table with exquisite politeness, hands curved gracefully, head inclined. “But those are only stories, aren’t they?”</p>
<p>Lan Wangji said nothing, only taking the bowl.</p>
<p>The monk continued. “These are uncertain times. War, famine, the whims of the gods. This village survived a flood and a fire and was lost to some lord the next season. We live in a land of bitter ghosts. Maybe it’s time to believe in old stories.” He waited, quietly eating.</p>
<p>Lan Wangji reached into his sleeve for the iron he’d collected from the boar god’s body. It rolled heavily onto the table between them, pitted and dark enough to absorb the light.</p>
<p>“I’m following a god,” he said, the words thick on his tongue. It had been long enough since he’d spoken to anyone at all. “A boar, he was wounded by this, cursed. I need to find where this was made.” He didn’t say that he’d been listening for a wolf call since he crossed the last river, had dreamed of moonlight and copper in his mouth.</p>
<p>The monk’s eyes narrowed as he took in the iron, his brows lifting over them like swallow’s wings.</p>
<p>“Traveler,” he said, “the world is a curse. Have you heard of the Burial Mounds?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Then</em>
</p>
<p>Through the earth, a low growl rumbled through his bones. It was the larger wolf, with angrier eyes. Lan Wangji recognized the hoarse voice even with his eyes closed and pain like a firecracker in his side. He was on rough ground, uneven, rocks digging into his spine and he couldn’t quite feel his lower legs or his fingertips. He was very cold.</p>
<p>“He’s dying,” and that was him, the wolf boy, a voice flute-sweet and tense. “His own people shot him.”</p>
<p>“Not mine.” It was hard to form the words, but it seemed important.</p>
<p>The wolf boy leaned close—his lashes casting shadows like crow’s wings on his cheeks even in the dim moonlight—and his breath was hot on Lan Wangji’s face. “Then why did you stop me from killing him?”</p>
<p>“I wanted you to live,” he rasped. His eyes wanted to close, bright shocky bursts of pain making him tremble, too much hurt for anything other than the truth.</p>
<p>The wolf boy bared his teeth, eyes huge and dark. “I’m not afraid to die.”</p>
<p>“I know,” said Lan Wangji. “I knew,” he coughed. “In the forest, when you—”</p>
<p>It seemed he only blinked and there was a painted face above his own, as close as a lover, a bright blade hovering, the point so close if he swallowed it might prick him.</p>
<p>The wolf boy was breathing hard but his hands were ruthlessly steady, lean arms tense. Behind him, his siblings circled ghostly and impatient. “I’m not afraid of <em>you</em>—”</p>
<p>He smelled of sweat and pelt and fresh-turned earth, the vivid paint flaking just slightly on his face, redder than his mouth, which was a soft thing and close. He was unnerved, but brave enough not to show it, crouched with animal grace over a human enemy, a boy beloved of gods and deep mountains, a boy long-lashed and fierce, who didn’t fear death.</p>
<p>Lan Wangji said, “You’re beautiful,” the words faster than his thoughts, and the wolf boy sprang back as if he’d been burned, swift and with the barest shift of feet and ornaments and blade. Another slow blink and a deep breath against the fire in his side, and when he opened his eyes, the boy had buried his face in a white ruff, hand tensed at his side.</p>
<p>“What is it, Wei Ying?” asked his brother, snarling, paws braced in the earth. “Shall I break his legs for you?”</p>
<p>“No,” said Wei Ying, and the name was sweet on Lan Wangji’s tongue.</p>
<p>Wei Ying stepped carefully closer, feet soft on the dirt, and there was a shift as he dropped next to Lan Wangji, gentle fingers at his jaw, turning him to look at him. “I will take you to the mountain god, but you must stay awake. Do you understand?”</p>
<p>Lan Wangji tried to nod, the skin around his eyes hot. He was tired. He thought he might like to close them.</p>
<p>The fingers were less gentle now, gripping him, the voice strained. “Hey, I told you to stay awake. <em>Look at me.</em>”</p>
<p>Lan Wangji did, and whatever was in his gaze made Wei Ying hitch a breath. He laughed, and the music of it sank into Lan Wangji’s bones like a first snow.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>Now</em>
</p>
<p>There had been a fierce storm, but there was more in the river than a storm could explain. A calamity, then.</p>
<p>At first he only saw the young man’s hair in the river, rippling like a ruined banner in the current, before he took in the still-breathing, limp body. The water ran high and violent after the rain, but Lan Wangji knew to plant himself and take slow steps. He got his shoulder under one of the young man’s arms, and made his way back to shore. There were others further out, too far to reach, scattered like the wreckage that surrounded them.</p>
<p>The young man’s soaked clothing was plain but sturdy, and his pulse was steady if faint beneath Lan Wangji’s fingers. He had a pleasant face, unguarded now, but one that had seen some hardship. There were odd dark lines that ran like veins up his neck, too sharp to be bruises, too soft to be ink. They didn’t look new though, so Lan Wangji applied himself to checking for more urgent hurts.</p>
<p>Just before dawn, he woke, words already on his lips, eyebrows raised in a permanent startle. “The supply train, our men, are they—“</p>
<p>“Gone,” said Lan Wangji, carefully tilting clear water into his mouth, “and you should rest.”</p>
<p>The silence of the forest deepened as the young man drank, his throat working. His color didn’t improve, but he seemed more alert. He looked skittish when he looked around, his eyes passing over the trees the sunlight barely penetrated, the whisper of the water, the rich smell of the deep wood.</p>
<p>“We are near a god’s realm,” he said nervously. “It was the wolves that attacked us.”</p>
<p>Lan Wangji’s skin prickled. “The Jiang?” he asked.</p>
<p>The young man nodded. “They have bitterness toward our lord.” He flinched back a little at whatever was in Lan Wangji’s eyes, and cupped his hands, only a little unsteady. “Wen Ning. I come from the Burial Mounds, and I serve Yiling Laozu.”</p>
<p>The Yiling Patriarch, a lord of iron and fire, who had settled near the mountain god’s realm like a demon, warring with the wolves of the Jiang and the boars of the Nie. He had made the thing that had driven the boar god mad. Had cursed the god, and Lan Wangji.</p>
<p>“Gongzi?”</p>
<p>Wen Ning’s eyes were wide, edged with fear, and the demon mark on Lan Wangji’s chest burned. When he lifted an arm, every hair stood on end, and he could feel the energy surrounding him like a nest of living snakes. He closed his eyes, thinking of the cold springs, of his brother’s smile, breath after breath until the mark was only a dull ache in the back of his mind.</p>
<p>He shifted the way he held Wen Ning, listening for when his breathing changed, careful with him, and stood slowly. “I will take you back.”</p>
<p>The stillness in the air, the sense of something <em>waiting</em>—he knew they were in the forest of some nameless god, and Wen Ning trembled at what might hide in the trees, but there were only spirits peeping out from root and branch, playful and curious.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to be afraid,” Lan Wangji said. “They’re a sign that this forest is thriving.” They reminded him of home, as if he might take the stillness into his heart, let it rest there, curled and content.</p>
<p>Wen Ning shook his head. “I don’t fear them. I fear their master.”</p>
<p>The stillness in his chest scattered. He heard long, lonely calls, a flute, thought of a painted face, a soft voice. “The wolves again?”</p>
<p>Wen Ning closed his eyes briefly, though he was holding his own weight as much as he was able. “No, a true god, an old one. They say she is the mountain and the forest itself, that she can appear as any beast, but she will show a human face.”</p>
<p>He remembered, with the suddenness of an arrow, a terrible pain at his side, being carried only half-awake and full-dreaming into the frozen heart of a forest deep and old.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>
  <em>Then</em>
</p>
<p>Lan Wangji blinked awake, dim light filtering through his lashes. He drowsed in cool water, only his head and shoulders on land.</p>
<p>Dark eyes over his own, a red mouth. “You were humming something when I carried you. It was pretty.” A gentle hand at his jaw. “Sing it again. It’s good to focus. Soon, the god will come.”</p>
<p>The melody was tucked under his tongue, had been in his head from the moment he’d seen the wolf gods and their human prince through the trees, but it was like fighting up through thick porridge, his thoughts scattered and only barely hooked by the pure, clear notes of what he’d picked out on his guqin in the woods.</p>
<p>“Good,” said Wei Ying, smiling, and oh, that smile—Lan Wangji wanted to reach up, though he could barely feel his arms, wanted to—“A song is a fine offering.”</p>
<p>He was warm, closed his eyes, and the dim light painted everything red still until his lashes were too heavy for him to remember the tune.</p>
<p>When he woke again, the sun was bright, and there was an absence of something heavy. Dragonflies and birds buzzed near him, by his eyes, his jaw, his hands, unafraid. He was exhausted, but he felt light, the pain in his side gone.</p>
<p>“You must be worth something, if the god of the mountain saved you.” Wei Ying’s smile was soft, and he pressed something to Lan Wangji’s mouth, meat by the smell of it. He shook his head, the motion still dulled and small, only managing to drag his lips away from it so it fell by his collar.</p>
<p>“I don’t—we don’t—” The words formed slowly, but Wei Ying’s eyes were laughing when he regarded him. He popped the piece of jerky into his own mouth, chewing.</p>
<p>“No meat? Were your people monks, traveler?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “No need, you can be pious enough for the both of us. I’ll eat this and fetch something else.”</p>
<p>Lan Wangji wanted to say, <em>no need, don’t trouble yourself</em>, unthinking reserve coming to his lips, but the thought of Wei Ying bringing him something, that gaze trained on his own mouth. His cheeks were hot.</p>
<p>Wei Ying’s eyes went to the wrapped guqin, laid neatly at Lan Wangji’s side—he must have brought it from outside the Jin encampment—the ribbon at his forehead, the unbroken white of his clothes, even the bloodstains gone after the god’s visit, though he could still feel the hole in the cloth where the arrow had pierced. “I think I’ve heard stories of your people, traveler. Tell me them.”</p>
<p>He hummed as he helped Lan Wangji sit up to drink water, one hand firm around the back of his head, another steadying him when he coughed at the startling cold of it. Wei Ying’s eyes softened, and he took a long draught of the water himself, but didn’t swallow, merely holding it in his mouth. He gently leaned in as if it were the most natural thing in the world, his lashes soft, lips nudging Lan Wangji’s mouth for a sip of body-warm water. Lan Wangji had been raised to keep even those he loved at a dignified distance. Love was in words, carefully thought out, and gestures, delivered with intent. He ought to have flinched back at the presumption, the closeness, but in Wei Ying’s eyes was only that softness that made his breath catch, and Lan Wangji found his own were hot at the simple generosity of it, unlooked-for and given as easily as a smile.</p>
<p>On Wei Ying’s lips were familiar notes, almost exact but languorous, each phrase honey-thickened with something that made the heat in his eyes spill over helplessly, an answer to a question he hadn’t realized he’d asked. It was his own song, sweet and transformed and blessed by a god.</p>
<p>*</p>
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